New Providence, the most populated island in the Bahamas, uses about 11 million gallons of groundwater a day.

The Bahamas has been unable to meet the demands of the 11 million gallons of groundwater since the mid-1970’s. This led to the emergence of barging water from North Andros due to strict rationing.

Rising sea levels are expected over the next several decades. This may create wetlands, which are fresh water resources that would provide the country’s means of water quality and survival. The method of desalting sea water by means of reverse osmosis is used to maintain a level of water quality in the Bahamas today. This suggests that water does not currently come from a supply of clean, freshwater sources.

The country is vulnerable to compromised freshwater from storm surges, which cause saltwater inundation in aquifers in many cases and threatens the country’s water quality.

A major concern of the water quality in the Bahamas is the proliferation of private shallow water wells, including domestic and hotel wells. Dangerous elements such as nitrates, pathogens and other substances compromise the groundwater quality when these wells are developed due to on-site sanitation. As a result, Bahamians are at great risk to contamination.

Water quality in the Bahamas is not up to standard, due to critical sanitary problems in the country. The main source of the water contamination is from septic tanks, soakaways and pit latrines. These issues are all major risks to water quality in the Bahamas and the overall the health of its citizens.

Due to over-abstraction, physical disturbance, point source pollution, solid waste disposal, disposal wells and septic tanks, the water quality in the Bahamas is threatened. The majority of Bahamians are encouraged to use bottled water, even though the Water & Sewerage Corporation practices desalination by reverse osmosis and the water satisfies both the World Health Organization and U.K. guidelines for chemical, physical and biological parameters.

Lake Chivero, a key water source for Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, is one of the several major dams that have reached full capacity countrywide. The synchronized overflow of the dams followed incessant rains that have pounded Zimbabwe for two weeks. Contrary to popular belief, this overflow is a good thing – at least in regards to the water quality in Zimbabwe.

The spilling of Lake Chivero, according to Harare Water Director Eng Hoslah Chisango, would improve not only the availability of water but also the water quality in Zimbabwe. When the lake spills, the downstream pour carries dirt with it and so the quality of the raw water is improved.

According to the Zimbabwe National Water Authority, Lake Chivero has risen to 108 percent capacity. But Lake Chivero’s overflow is just one of many across the country. Other water reservoirs have also been full as a consequence of the heavy rains, and the national dam level average has risen to 65 percent. This is a huge landmark, especially in Zimbabwe, where the residents suffer from scarce water supplies.

The two weeks of heavy rains may not seem noteworthy, but in Zimbabwe, they are just the opposite. The domino effect set in motion by the overflow of dams across the country could help Zimbabwe get access to clean water for the near future. This is especially important as the country’s overall water coverage is a mere 56 percent. Most people rely on water from boreholes (narrow shafts drilled into the ground), which is almost all contaminated. Women and children, who are often the ones responsible for going to the borehole, often have to wait up to five hours to collect water.

Water quality in Zimbabwe is nevertheless an important problem that needs to be addressed, but the dams may provide momentary relief for the country. On a large scale, the overflow will not offer the necessary relief to the Harare residents who have been suffering from both the country’s droughts and the council’s inefficiency to find a long-term solution. Hopefully, the dam overflow sheds light on the poor water quality in Zimbabwe and the need for additional aid.

Water quality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is in need of improvement. Only 46 percent of the population has access to clean and safe drinking water. Although the DRC has an abundance of freshwater sources, pollution and accessibility are major issues in the country.

According to the World Food Programme, the DRC is one of the poorest countries in the world. Therefore, the country has a lack of infrastructure and insufficient water storage and treatment facilities. Poorly maintained water systems can be dangerous because old and rusted pipes can possibly pollute water. Some towns, especially in rural regions, do not have any water systems.

For instance, the isolated town of Kasongo once had a working water system but it broke down and was not been repaired for several years. Without running water, residents had to walk three miles to get water from the nearest stream. This trip can take up to two hours. This is common for rural towns in the Congo.

People in the rural regions who depend on direct water sources are more likely to drink unsafe water. Approximately 37 million people in rural areas are at risk of contracting a disease from contaminated streams and rivers. One of the most common illnesses caused by unsafe drinking water is Cholera. Every year, 20,000 people die from cholera.

UNICEF representative, Pierette Vu Thi says, “A child living in a Congolese village is four times more likely to drink contaminated water than someone in town. Yet, all children have equal right to survival and development of which drinking water is a vital component.”

There are many solutions being explored to improve water access and quality in the Congo. The state water company REGIDESO is tapping groundwater in order to install pumps in remote rural areas. This method is much cheaper and less difficult than installing water systems. But, old water systems are also being restored. In Kasongo, REGIDESO replaced their defunct water system. The old storage tank, engine and pump were repaired with new models. A network of pipes and taps were extended to provide more people with running water.

The water quality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is poor especially for the Congolese in rural areas. However, with new initiatives, many more people will gain access to clean water without having to travel miles.

Erratic rainfall negatively affects the water quality in Ethiopia and can cause famine and food shortage. In addition, war diverts resources that could be used for clean water projects.

Essential for survival, water is something most people can access very easily. The number of people in Ethiopia with access to clean water has doubled, from 29 percent in 2000 to 59 percent in 2015. Yet 41 percent of the population lacks adequate access to safe water.

Ethiopia has endured four severe droughts since 1974 and is currently facing the worst drought it has seen in 50 years. The water crisis can be attributed not only to severe drought but also to lack of government funding and infrastructure.

Best-selling author and YouTuber John Green went to Ethiopia with Bill Gates. “When I asked people about their greatest needs, almost all of them–from the Women’s Health Army volunteers to children–cited clean water first.”

Women spend hours every day carrying 50-pound cans filled with clean water for their families. Because of the distance that many women must travel to get clean water, families often utilize any water they have access to, regardless of its safety.

One method of improving water quality in Ethiopia is to implement rainwater harvesting techniques. Rainwater harvesting initiatives have helped those facing drought in India, China and Mexico and could be the answer to improving water quality in Ethiopia on a widespread basis. Rainwater harvesting helps people provide themselves with clean water from a reliable source that can last through even the driest seasons.

When asked about rainwater harvesting by the BBC, Dennis Garrity of the World Agroforestry Centre said, “Ethiopia, often regarded as a dry country, could collect enough for half a billion people…The time has come to realize the great potential for greatly enhancing drinking water supplies…by harvesting more of the rain when and where it falls.”

In a study assessing the impact of rainwater harvesting systems in the Abreha Weatsbeha watershed, the community utilized sustainable land management methods such as integrated soil and water conservation practices. Farmers learned to use conservation structures and vegetation in the upper part of watersheds to contribute to the amount of groundwater discharged in the lower part of the catchment.

The groundwater table is now only three meters beneath the surface, even in the driest season (it was previously 15 meters underground). Farmers now have their own shallow irrigation wells and the community has 388 hand-dug wells. The people in Abreha Weatsbeha call these groundwater ponds their “water bank.” Thanks to the “water banks” rainwater harvesting systems create, quality of life and water in Ethiopia can greatly improve.

Vietnam’s 3,260 km coastline and extensive river networks have given the country an economic and industrial advantage. However, the exploitation and resulting pollution of the rivers has severely limited people’s access to clean drinking water. Despite efforts taken to improve water quality in Vietnam and limit the unmindful disposal of factory waste, polluted water still causes up to 80 percent of illnesses nationwide.

Vietnam has one of the highest child malnutrition rates in Southeast Asia, and as many as 44 percent of Vietnamese children fall ill with whipworms, hookworms or roundworms. Other common water-borne illnesses in Vietnam include Hepatitis A, Hepatitis E and Typhoid Fever, all of which are most commonly spread by fecal contamination of drinking water.

The pollution most profoundly impacts those living in central and southern Vietnam, where the majority of waterways are used for farming and power. Although water quality in Vietnam‘s upstream rivers such as the Red River remains acceptable, those living downstream or in urban areas are at greater risk of contracting water-borne illnesses.

According to the National Center for Water Resources Planning and Investigation, water samples from Binh Chanh, Cu Chi and District 12 contain unsafe levels of ammonia and manganese. Arsenic contamination in water has also been a threat to the entire nation.

Untreated industrial waste is the primary cause of poor water quality in Vietnam, as fifty industrial zones discharge 105 million liters of largely untreated wastewater into the Saigon every day. International water resource organizations recommend limiting river flow exploitation to 30 percent, but, according to a report in the Voice of Vietnam online journal, the Ninh Thuan province exploits as much as 80 percent. This has degraded the basins in the Red River, the Thai Binh River and the Dong Nai River.

Hydropower plants have been built on all 13 big river networks, as well as on small rivers. The power plants have cut the river networks into artificial water reservoirs and have upset the river’s water storage. This not only devastates the forests and water life, but it makes people living downstream from these areas particularly vulnerable to pollution from farming pesticides, fertilizer, factory runoff, fish farms and wastewater.

Vietnam is developing its hydropower infrastructure to keep up with its increasing demand for energy. While the existing administrative and legal framework for pollution control is substantial, the problem, according to Nguyen Thi Kim Oanh, a professor at the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, is law enforcement. “We need to have strong punishments,” Oanh says, especially with larger power plants. He also says that people need to be aware of the issue so that they do not contribute to the pollution themselves.

Some of the greatest problems regarding pollution control are low fines, vague criteria for identifying polluters, low monitoring capacity, little willingness to enforce regulations and inadequate funding. Legislation passed in the last decade, however, has made provisions for harsher sanctions against polluters, such as the 2005 revised Law on Environmental Protection.

Funding for pollution control has also increased over the last ten years on both the national and provincial levels. For example, the HCMC Waste Recycling Fund targets waste management firms, while the Vietnam Environmental Protection Fund targets pollution control in urban areas, craft villages and hospitals.

Flexible funding, effective audits and knowledge as to who polluters are should reduce the waste going into Vietnamese rivers. The benefits of these changes will protect future generations from serious illnesses, and ultimately prepare the country for more sustainable economic development.

Less than a decade ago, a serious water shortage in Israel threatened the quality of life and future survival of the Israeli people. Water quality and abundance in Israel have improved in recent years with the help of desalination techniques that turn Mediterranean seawater and wastewater into usable water.

Israel is an arid, Mediterranean country with a history of extreme water shortages. The seven-year drought that began in 2005 depleted Israel’s natural water sources and compromised the quality of the water. The Israeli government established the Water Authority in 2007 to focus the efforts on solving the water shortage in Israel.

One of the government’s methods for fixing the water shortage in Israel was its implementation of desalination plants that produce more than 130 billion gallons of water per year. Some experts say that desalination is becoming a cheap and energy efficient way to treat water.

Desalination processes make more than 50 percent of water for various sectors of Israel, including homes, agriculture and industry. Water is now more expensive for farmers, but it is at least readily available.

Israel also reuses and recycles wastewater for agricultural purposes by treating 86 percent of domestic wastewater. The nation now leads as the world’s top water recycler.

Despite plentiful water supplies for Israel, the nation shares its mountain aquifer with the West Bank. Israel claims that it gives Palestinians more than what peace accords require it to give, but Palestinians are not satisfied with the amount or cost of the water.

The technology that solved the water shortage in Israel has not helped the Palestinians who rely on Israel’s water sources. The agreements that provided Palestinians with 20 percent of the water from the mountain aquifer have become outdated as the Palestinian population has almost doubled.

According to The Economist, Palestinians get an average of 73 liters of water a day. The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of 100 liters of water per day. To make matters worse, the coastal aquifer that Palestinians in Gaza rely on is polluted and could soon become permanently damaged.

Israelis have water thanks to revolutionary water treating techniques. Complex political and social struggles prevent Palestinians from gaining access to the same water. Now that Israel has solved its own water shortage, its actions will largely decide if Palestinians get the water that they need to survive.

Clean water is something that is often taken for granted, but certainly not in Malawi. In the last two years, UNICEF helped nearly 50,000 people gain access to improved water supply and produced 500 water points, with the new goal to serve an additional 125,000 people with safe water in 2016. Though overall water quality in Malawi has improved significantly, there is still so much more that can be done.

Many water hand pumps are inoperative, leaving people with no choice but to go back to unsafe water sources. Poor sanitation practices and improper storage of drinking water often lead to waterborne illnesses like cholera. WaterAid is one organization making a difference and supporting the marginalized communities of Malawi by repairing broken wells and handpumps. Showing users how to maintain their own facilities ensures that safe water will be available close to homes year round.

The lack of access to safe water in Malawi has taken a toll on cultivation and increased hunger. A steady water supply is essential to growing enough food to eat, but the extreme weather and pollution where the majority of people in Malawi live make farming difficult. In addition to wells and handpumps, WaterAid also builds simple composting latrines, which help keep water sources clean and provide fertilizer for crops.

According to the USAID Fact Sheet, approximately 4 million people still lack access to safe water. Likewise, 10 million people lack access to adequate sanitation in Malawi. Clean water is essential for a healthy population. Clean Water for Malawi (CWFM) works to provide this basic necessity by drilling water wells in small villages. CWFM has built 402 wells in Malawi since 2010, with each well supplying enough clean water for up to 350 – 500 people.

Lack of access to clean water causes disease and death in Malawi. Approximately 30,000 people die every year in Malawi from issues caused by dirty water, namely diarrhea, dysentery, parasitic infections and food and water-borne illnesses.

Algeria, a country on the northern edge of Africa, has an arid and semi-arid climate with less than 300 cubic meters of water available per capita each year. This amount is well below the U.N.’s water poverty threshold, making Algeria a severely water-scarce country. Water supplies are few and far between, and the continuous water overexploitation worsens the country’s water situation — naturally available water resources are degrading drastically and quickly.

Algiers hopes to employ high-cost technological solutions to support the growing population and maximize limited water supplies, but procuring funding will be a challenge.

A water quality monitoring system has already been established in Algeria to monitor its surface water. The system is comprised of 100 stations that cover major watercourses and dams. The country’s groundwater is also tested every three months.

Despite this, most of the water resources in Algeria remain polluted due to a lack of working wastewater treatment plants, as well as untreated industrial waste which is illegally discharged into natural water bodies. This misuse of water and water treatment creates even more sanitation and health issues for the Algerian people.

Anticipated climate changes, with rising temperatures and less rain, will also impact the scarcity of water in Algeria. These factors, along with a growing population which is using more water than ever before, has put an even greater strain on the country’s water resources.

Algiers, the capital city of Algeria, has developed a water management strategy that focuses on maximizing the country’s limited water supplies through redistribution, increased water storage capacity and enhanced desalination capacity.

This plan will require mobilization of resources, restoration of existing infrastructure, institutional reforms and a large amount of funding. Investments from both the government and private institutions, as well as additional planning, will be necessary to keep Algeria’s already limited water supplies from declining even more.

The water quality in Haiti is in desperate need of improvement. The World Bank hopes to increase access to clean water because “[it] not only saves lives, but [it] also [helps] reduce poverty and improve the livelihood opportunities of these communities,” reports Mary Barton-Dock of the World Bank Special Envoy.

The lack of proper sanitation and unsafe water quality in Haiti fosters the spread of disease. For example, a cholera epidemic ensued after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and 8,700 lives have been lost since. Although diagnosed cases of cholera have decreased, heavy rains in the early months of 2015 brought a surge of new cases.

Stand pipes or water points with hand pumps are the main systems used for water transportation in Haiti. Due to lack of funding, many of these water systems are no longer in service. Thankfully, the World Bank found a way to improve the situation by funding a program located in the southern region of Haiti. This global organization built professional operators whose main purpose is to maintain many of the water supply systems.

Over 60,000 people have benefited from these system improvements. The program also helped train community health workers and medical personnel, as well as strengthened the country by making it more self-sustaining.

The Board of Directors of the World Bank also authorized a $50 million grant from the International Development Association (IDA). “The Sustainable Rural and Small Towns Water and Sanitation project aims to save lives by preventing cholera and waterborne diseases in high prevalence zones, and strengthen the capacity of local agencies to deliver water and sanitation services in rural areas and small towns.” This grant will help nearly 300,000 people gain access to potable water and proper sanitation.

This project will also be linked to a ten-year, government-supported Cholera Elimination Plan. This long-term plan will save thousands of Haitian kids from waterborne, disease-related deaths. Benito Dumay, the Director General of the National Water and Sanitation Directorate, understands how essential healthy water quality is for Haiti, and is determined for the project to succeed.

Water is a catalyst for life, and now thousands of Haitians will be able to access this life-saving liquid for the first time. The World Bank reached out to the U.N., the U.N.’s development partners and the Haitian Government to collectively discuss the financing gap and what they learned about fighting cholera.

The Borgen Project has also done a great deal of work at the political level when it comes to advocating for clean water and sanitation. This nonprofit helped build support for the Water for the World Act. The organization also met with hundreds of Congressional offices, equating to 410 meetings, to discuss activism regarding water-quality programs.

Between 2009 and 2014, The Borgen Project helped mobilize thousands of Americans to email and call their congressional leaders in support of the Water for the World legislation. The bill was passed in December 2014, and millions of people gained first-time access to potable water and appropriate sanitation.

As numerous organizations fight the battle for water quality in Haiti and around the world, their tremendous progress makes the future of water quality that much clearer.

The Rulindo Challenge is an initiative developed in 2010 by the partnership of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Water For People and the Rwandan government. The Challenge acts as a permanent solution to provide full water access to the northern, rural Rwandan province of Rulindo by 2018.

Approximately 285,000 people reside in the Rulindo District. The terrain of the area is mostly hills and valleys, so springs and groundwater make up the main sources of water in Rulindo.

According a report by Water For People, prior to the Rulindo Challenge the area lacked proper standards in terms of the water quality in Rwanda. Only 29 percent of the population had access to safe drinking water and just six percent of water systems were likely to provide sustainable water service.

Rulindo’s 2016 goals include increasing the levels of water access by 11 percent through sustainable water infrastructure, such as installing eight piped water systems in five areas and water tanks in 13 schools. A new health care facility was also constructed as a result of the goals.

The Rulindo Challenge also seeks to increase the newly established water infrastructure’s sustainability to 100 percent at the end of 2016, building the technical and financial capacity needed for two private operators and the district water board members and staff.

To implement these goals, the progressive partnership has developed a systematic approach in order to meet district-wide demands for clean water and sanitation. The joint partners set out to achieve sustainability challenges to meet current local capacity and strength, leveraging locally available resources and striving to serve as a model for replication.

According to a report by Water For People, “community water service has increased 20 percentage points to 49 percent in the district as a result of these activities.” The water and sanitation at schools and clinics also increased drastically to 67 percent in the Rulindo District.

Currently, nearly 118,000 community water beneficiaries, 114 connections at 68 public institution water systems and over 51,500 public water beneficiaries have been created since the beginning of the Rulindo Challenge to improve water quality in Rwanda.

The initiative resulted in improved access to water supply for 60,000 people. In addition, the quality of the water mechanisms are expected to last well into the future. Sustainability measures in 2012 recorded just six percent prior to the Rulindo Challenge.

The increase in sustainability to 89 percent resulted in an 83-point percentage overall improvement. Due to the increased sustainability in the district, the implementation of the strategies and approaches shows that communities and public institutions will have safe, reliable access to drinking water for many years to come.

When the Rulindo Challenge concludes in 2018, the partners will implement a thorough exit strategy to ensure that the maintenance and protection of the water resources remains intact. In addition, the partners will implement a plan for climate change resilience to promote sustainability and access to adequate water sources for generations to come.